While I was collecting fly corpses in Edinburgh, graduate students who had enrolled at the University of Tsukuba after I graduated were continuing to carry out molecular genetic analyses of the resistance genes that I had identified during my graduate student days. From time to time, my former advisor at Tsukuba, who had supported me throughout my graduate studies, would send me updates on their results. She struck me as a very capable graduate student, having already learned gene manipulation during her undergraduate years and actively making progress in genetic analyses. Based on the chromosomal analyses I had carried out as a graduate student, I was personally more interested in the resistance gene on the third chromosome, and, to be honest, I was eager to find out as soon as possible what that gene really was. However, the graduate students seemed to be more interested in the resistance gene on the second chromosome. Even so, while I was being told that I had only six months left and was searching for my next career path, my former advisor at Tsukuba informed me of the results of the analyses of the resistance gene on the third chromosome. Around the same time, I also received an email from the graduate student outlining her seminar, which let me know how the resistance research had progressed since I had graduated.
(translated version of the post on October 28, 2021)
私がエジンバラでハエの死体を拾い集めていた頃、筑波大学では、私が卒業した後に新たに入学してきた大学院生たちが、私が在学中に位置決定していた抵抗性遺伝子について、分子遺伝学的に解析を続けており、ときどき、筑波でお世話になっていた指導教官から、分析の結果について、いろいろと情報を提供してくださっていました。とても優秀な院生だったようで、学部時代に遺伝子の操作をすでに学んできており、自分で積極的に遺伝子の解析をどんどんと進めていたようでした。私が在学中に行った染色体分析の結果から、私自身としては、第3染色体上の抵抗性遺伝子により大きな興味があり、その抵抗性遺伝子の本体はなんであるのかについて、正直なところ、早く知りたかったのですが、その院生たちは、どうも第2染色体上の抵抗性遺伝子により興味があったようです。それでも、あと半年だけといわれて、次の進路を探している中、第3染色体上の抵抗性遺伝子の分析結果についても、指導教官のほうから教えていただくとともに、その大学院生からも、彼女自身のセミナーの概要を伝えるメールをもらったりして、私が卒業した後の抵抗性研究の進捗状況を教えてもらうことになりました。
(2021年10月28日のポストを再掲）